Aegaeon
Aegaeon '''was one of the three Hecatonchires and the first boss in God of War: Ascension. He was the first to break a blood oath with a god and to be punished by the Furies, becoming a titan-sized living-prison called the Prison of the Damned. One of these prisoners is Kratos, who is imprisoned in the Hecatonchires by The Furies as punishment for his crimes. The outline of Aegaeon in flashbacks depicts him as a giant with six arms with twelve smaller arms on his six arms. Greek Mythology '''Aegaeon (also called Briareus) the Hecatonchires was one of three giants of incredible strength and ferocity that surpassed that of all Titans whom they helped overthrow. Born from Gaia and Uranus, along with his two brothers Cottus, and Gyges. Their name derives from the Greek ἑκατόν (hekaton; "hundred") and χείρ (kheir; "hand"), "each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads". Hesiod's Theogony reports that the three Hekatonkheires became the guards of the gates of Tartarus. In God of War Series After the Great War, Aegaeon pledged a blood oath to Zeus only to later betray him. The Furies weren't pleased by this betrayal and thus hunted him down to torture him without end, as they saw death would be too merciful for such a crime. He became an example to all, and a prison for those who followed his example. Six months after he was tricked into killing his wife and child, a younger Kratos finally finds a way to break the blood oath that binds him to the God of War, Ares. After taking matters into his own hands, Kratos is sentenced to a life of madness with the Furies, caged within Aegaeon himself, until he would return to the service of the God of War. As he escaped the torture of Megaera, he chased her in an attempt to find the exit of this damned place, only to be attacked by her minions and later by the prison itself. The Infected Hands of Aegaeon The parasites used by Megaera enter an arm of the Hecatonchires, which causes the fingers to mutate and grow while a sixth finger sprouts from the hand. Moments later, a monster with giant tusks and claws bursts out the palm of the hand, and four of the mutated fingers (the two in the middle are turned to its back) become insect legs. During this first confrontation, the environment changes, similar as it did during the first boss battle in God of War III. Kratos ended this battle by slitting the monster's throat with its own claw. During a second battle, an arm splits in half to reveal another monster similar to the first one. It uses the two halves of Aegaeon's hand as claws. The monster throws Kratos through several prison cells before continuing the battle. During the battle, Kratos weakens the monster by letting parts of the prison crashing down it twice before pinning his hands and chest to three spikes, one each, and then snapping its back. Suddenly, one of the many hands grab the body of the dead creature and Kratos. It puts them in the stomach of the giant. Kratos awakes and start to go up through a giant intestine-tunnel like, but in his way he finds Megaera, who sends new breeds of infected dogs to kill the Spartan. Kratos quickly kills the new abominations and start to go up again. In his way to escape of the prison, he almost fall in the sexual trap of one the Furies, Tisiphone, but discovered her trick and tried to attack her. Meagera appears and pushes Kratos through the wall, making both fall on another platform. He takes the battle to this platform in front of the giant's open mouth, while Megaera watches him on Aegaeon's left eye. Aegaeon's death After killing all of the enemies in the platform, Megaera declares that Kratos had caused her pain for the last time. She creates more parasites, which burrow under Aegaeon's eye. His whole dormant face's skin starts to crack. Aegaeon's head mutates into a horrific monstrosity with insect-like mandibles around his mouth and sharpened teeth, who seeks to kill Kratos. Kratos tries to attack the head's newly acquired limbs while fighting more enemies on the platform and trying to avoid Aegaeon's crushes and bites. After inflicting enough damage to one of the limbs, it explodes, and the head throws both the platform and Kratos away. After escaping from the head, Kratos falls on another platform of the Hecatonchires, and the head appears once again. On the other side of the platform, a third Infected Hand appears, helping the head to corner Kratos. The Spartan attacks the Infected Hand and then stabs his Blades in its eyes and climbs on its backs. The blind and angered Hand still tries to attack Kratos, without knowing he's behind it. Kratos rides this Hand by stabbing its backs, which makes it attack the giant head, cutting some of its limbs. Then, he pushes the Hand into the mouth of Aegaeon, which bites it while being stabbed in the cheek. In a quick movement, Kratos jumps towards Megaera, who was still on Aegaeon's eye, while the Hand dies on the Head's mouth. After a short fight, Kratos stabs the Fury's chest, making her fall from the Head, and he falls after her. He finishes her life by stabbing her chest once again as they reach the ground. Aegaeon dies with Megaera. With his death, he was finally free from his eternal torment. Notes Throughout Aegaeon, three interesting pages were found on the floor. Apparently, they were all written by a same and mysterious Scribe of Hecatonchires. Their text has been copied below: *Every night they come to my cell... it is unspeakable what they do. Megaera's parasites... I cannot rid myself of them. *An oath to the gods is too easily sworn and not so easily broken. The Furies see only their version of right and wrong. *The Fury Queen's son entered the world this night. Is he the prophecy's Marked One? How can one so newly made be seem as such a failure by his father? Trivia * It is unknown why Aegaeon dies after Megaera's demise, it is possibly due to blood-loss after three of his hands and his own face are mangled and destroyed by Kratos, another reason is infection, from Megaera's parasites invading his body * The other name for Aegaeon is Briareus (which he is often called), the Hecatonchire Kratos faces in God of War: Ascension goes by the name Aegaeon. * Aegaeon's face looks similar to Polyphemus before it mutates but with two eyes instead of one. * Gyges, one of the Hecatonchires, appears in the God of War Comics. * Megaera turns three of Aegaeon's smaller arms into insect-like monsters by using the parasites that come out of her chest; they look similar to beetles as they have the same type of tusks and also have plating like a scorpion's. ** The first monster inside the Hecatonchires's mutated hand had attacks quite similar to the Hippocampi from God of War III. However, the second monster attacks more like the Colossus of Rhodes from God of War II. The third, again, fights similar to the Hippocampi, and is used to attack the head. * The warrior seemingly killed by one of the Aegaeon's arms, is, in fact, the warrior the players use in the multiplayer mode. * Aegeaon is repeatly and incorrectly referred to as 'the Hecatonchires', which is the plural form of 'Hecatonchire', like he should be. * If The Scribe of Hecatonchires was the first prisoner to be put there, that implies that the prison was built not so long ago, as it seemed that it was built thousand of years before Kratos' birth, near the beginning of Zeus' reign. This is because, even if the Scribe was caged in his youth, he is old, but still alive, something that implies that the prison was built at least 60 ~ 70 years before the ''Ascension ''timeline, unless the Furies found a way to avoid the aging of the prisoners, in a way to make their torture be, in fact, eternal. ** Another possibility is that, although Aegaeon would have actually become the Prison hundreds of years before Ascension, the Scribe would only become its first prisoner ages later, since there aren't explicit signs that the Scribe became the prisoner as soon as the Prison was created. * A few moments before Megaera infects the Head of Aegaeon with more parasites, it's possible to see his eye looking around trying to see what is happening to him. This proves that, even many years after having his whole body and many of his vital organs transformed into a prison, Aegaeon was still alive. * The Infected Head of Aegaeon dies as soon as Megaera does, which implies that its life was connected to Megaera's. However, even after killing her and recovering the Amulet of Uroborus, Kratos still finds alive Megaera's Minions in the Prison while he tries to reconstruct it. The reason they didn't die with Megaera, like Aegaeon did, is unknown. * In flashbacks of the Great War, Aegaeon was possibly seen among the Titans and Gods clashing each other. * Staying in Aegaeon as a prisoner for a long period seems to affect the memory of a person. Kratos, for example, had to struggle to remember the weeks prior to his imprisonment. The main character of Rise of the Warrior needed the help of Orkos to remember why he was at the Prison and even who was himself. ** It is unknown whether Orkos is immune to such effect or not, since he's the son of the Furies themselves. Although he has been kept as a prisoner in Aegaeon twice - after he and Aletheia tried to warn Zeus of Ares ' plot and when he tried to help Kratos to reach the Eyes of Truth - the time it took him to remember his actions isn't mentioned at all (if it took him any time). ** When reading about the Scribe of Hecatonchires in his cell, it's mentioned that, in order to keep a grip on his sanity, he had been writing meticolous records of the Furies and their schemes. The description was probably referring to this effect: making records of all that happens in Aegaeon and then reading them again in case of loss of memory would always help the Scribe to remember what had been happening and even who he was, preventing him from getting completely crazy. ** It's possible that the loss of memory is no magic at all, but simply a result of the relentless tortures the Furies apply to the prisoners, which are capable of driving many of them mad. * Throughout the Hecatonchires, adorning doors or painted on the walls, it's possible to see many eye symbols. It's probably a symbol of the Furies, but it's never actually mentioned in the game due to its little importance to the story. ** It can be associated to the illusionary powers the Furies have: the eye can represent the way the sisters fool the vision of their victims, among their other senses. * Initially, it was said that the titan-sized Prison in which Kratos was tortured and driven mad was in Tartarus. In the game, however, it seems very unlikely that the Hecatonchires is in Tartarus: the skies are always illuminated by a very bright sun light; the ground below the Prison isn't fiery or made of anything that could be related to Tartarus; in fact, by looking down to the ground below Aegaeon sometimes, it's even possible to see a green and healthy vegetation. Due to these facts, Aegaeon is more likely to be located at some non-inhabited part of Greece. * Although it is hard to notice this most of the times, the "cell" in which Kratos was kept and tortured in the Hecatonchires (the same one from which he escapes at the beginning of the game to chase Megaera) is actually the one located inside Aegaeon's open mouth. When Kratos is fighting Megaera there to free himself from his chains, it's possible to notice that the ceiling of the place are actually the teeth of Aegaeon, for example. The cell can be seem once again when Kratos fights a group of enemies in the platform in front of the Hecatonchire's head, a few moments before Megaera uses her Parasites to mutate it. ** The importance of this fact is that the Furies were keeping Kratos in the most important and visible cell of the entire Prison: the head of it. This points out the great obsession the sisters had with the Spartan, keeping him in this place as a prize or to watch him more easily from their chambers. Gallery Aegaeon the Hekantonkheires.JPG|Aegaeon the Hekantonkheires Hecatonchires monster arms.JPG|The Beast within the Arms Hecatonchires monster arms 2.JPG Aegaeon bg.PNG Hecatonkhires infected arm 1.png 20130326152229!Kratos_atacando_a_una_Mano_de_Egeón.jpg kratos_.jpg Mano_de_Egeón_3.jpg Hecatonkhires infected arm 2.png Fighting the arms of the Hecatonkheire.png Snapshot.png|Infected head of Aegaeon Hecatonkhires mutated head.JPG The Hecatonchires.jpg Hecaton Mural.jpg|Mural seen in the interior of the Hecatonchires Hecaton early concept.jpg|Early concept of th interior of Aegaeon hecatonchires1.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept hecatonchires2.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept Hecatonichires-action1.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept Hecatonichires-action3.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept Hecatonichires-action2.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept hecatonchires-3.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept hecatonchires-open1.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept hecatonchires-open2.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept hecatonchires-side-1.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept hecatonchires-top-1.jpg|Hecatonchires early concept Prison of the Damned.PNG Concept Art The Prison Hecatonkheires 1.jpg|Concept Art: The Living Prison Concept Art The Prison Hecatonkheires 2.jpg Concept Art The Prison Hecatonkheires 3.jpg Temple hand of Aegeaon concept art.jpg Megeras parasite.jpg|Infected arm of Aegaeon Megeras parasite2.jpg Hecatonchires hand Early concept.PNG|Early Design of the infected hand Killing the infected arm.png Megeras parasite6.jpg Megeras parasite4.jpg Megeras parasite5.jpg Megeras parasite3.jpg ageon.jpg ageon2.jpg Aegaeon-god-of-war-ascension02-KatonCallaway.jpg Aegaeon Head.jpg 8696334115_72db3e1225_o.jpg Aegaeon-god-of-war-ascension04-KatonCallaway.jpg|Eye of Aegaeon hecaCloseUp.jpg|T-Model: Infected Arm hecaHand10Bust.jpg hecaHand10Full.jpg hecaArms.jpg Category:God of War Series Category:God of War:Ascension Category:Locations Category:Bosses Category:Monsters Category:Titans Category:Males